The alluvial area in the middle of Tra Khuc River through Quang Ngai City has hundreds of households growing watermelon and other vegetables. This is the largest watermelon growing area in Quang Ngai province.
However, the unusual heavy rain in the past two days has caused the water level of Tra Khuc River to rise. Some watermelon and vegetable fields... on the alluvial land were flooded, causing farmers to lose hundreds of millions of VND.
According to Mr. Nham Xuan Sy - Director of the Quang Ngai Hydrometeorological Station, on February 23 and 24, Quang Ngai had an unusually heavy rain, especially in mountainous districts. Heavy rain caused local flooding in the upper reaches of Tra Khuc and Ve rivers. In the downstream, rising river water flooded many areas of crops.
According to the reporter's records, on the morning of February 25, many watermelon fields on the alluvial plains of Tra Khuc river, passing through Quang Ngai city, were still flooded. Mr. Nguyen Quang Huy, owner of a melon field, said: "More than 1ha of my melon is flooded. Cantaloupe trees that are submerged in water for a long time will die. This time I have lost about 100 million VND".
According to many melon growers in the Tra Khuc river alluvial plain, it is sunny every February, but this year there is unusually heavy rain, causing flooding in many melon fields, leaving people unable to react and not knowing how to cope. Many melon fields have only been planted for 10 days, so the melons are still quite weak, and have encountered unusually heavy rain, causing severe damage.
Mr. Pham Nhuan, a melon farmer in the alluvial plains in the middle of the Tra Khuc river, lamented: "For the past month, melon growers have spent a lot of money to hire people to make soil, tarpaulins, seedling costs, fertilizers... Now the dead melons have to be rebuilt from scratch. Those whose melon fields are flooded will definitely suffer losses this season," said Mr. Nhuan.
According to Mr. Nham Xuan Sy, Director of the Quang Ngai Provincial Hydrometeorological Station, on February 23 and 24, Quang Ngai had a widespread rain. In some places, there was very heavy rain with measured rainfall up to 170mm. At the end of February, there was an unusual rain, the rainfall on February 23 and 24 was 4-6 times the average rainfall in February of many years.
